It is becoming increasingly common to provide an automotive vehicle seat assembly with an integral child restraint seat for safely restraining an infant or child in the vehicle seat. The vehicle seat assembly generally includes an upright seat back, a horizontal seat bottom and a headrest assembly attached to the upper portion of the seat back and commonly adjustable in the vertical direction from a lower position against the top of the seat back to a raised position spaced above the top of the seat back.
The integral child restraint seat commonly includes a child backrest portion recessed in a cavity in the front face of the adult seat back and a child seat portion pivotally secured to the child backrest a pivotal between a folded position against the adult seat back and an unfolded use position extended downwardly against the adult seat bottom portion.
The U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,282,668; 5,312,156 and 5,336,270 to Heussner et al., and assigned to the present assignee, each disclose integral child restraint seats recessed in the adult seat back and pivotal between a folded position and an unfolded use position for restraining a child in the seat. These patents also disclose a moveable headrest which forms a portion of the adult seat back with the child seat in the folded position and forms a child headrest or extended child backrest with the child seat in the unfolded use position.
However, it remains desirable to provide a child restraint seat and latch mechanism which ensures that the headrest assembly is in the proper lower position for use with the child restraint seat in the unfolded use position and also locks and prevents use of the child restraint seat if the headrest is raised toward the upper position spaced from the adult seat back cushion.